Tea Party leaders call GOP Senate candidate a "phony" and "fraud"

Tea Party leaders again took aim at GOP Senate candidate Mike McFadden calling him a "phony" and a "fraud" in a podcast that aired Wednesday.

McFadden, running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Al Franken, is continuing to claim that MSNBC host Chris Matthews attacked him on a cable news show last week even though the network confirmed Matthews was talking about Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick.

In a fundraising email, still running on Facebook, McFadden says Matthews is attacking him -- something Minnesota Tea Party Alliance leaders Jack Rogers and Jake Duesenberg called disingenuous.

"This guy is a fraud. He's an absolute fraud," Duesenberg said on his Living Free podcast. "They just need some people like us to expose this behavior, which isn't only Mike McFadden's campaign, this happens all over the United States, this happens time and time again."

McFadden's campaign manager Brad Herold declined to comment Saturday.

This adds to the apparent trouble McFadden's camp is having with the Tea Party. The same leaders earlier this month railed on the businessman for declining speaking invitations.

A Duluth native who just barely lost Virginia's GOP gubernatorial primary said that politicians have not gone far enough in condemning the left for violence during a rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville. "I think that the left is going to try to use this as an excuse to crack down on conservative free speech," said Corey Stewart. "I think they're going to try to use this as an excuse to remove more historical monuments."